News by the HIV Justice Network

The International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) have published an updated position statement on the criminalisation of women living with HIV for non-disclosure, potential or perceived exposure, and transmission. The statement highlights many problems with overly broad HIV…

In a joint media release, Living Positive Victoria and the Victorian AIDS Council have welcomed the passage of the Crimes Amendment (Repeal of Section 19A) Act 2015 by the Victorian Parliament. The Act repeals Australia’s only HIV-specific law criminalising the…

Australia’s only HIV-specific criminal law, section 19A of the Crimes Act in the state of Victoria, has now been repealed. This is an exciting step forward for those of us working to turn around Victoria’s poor record on criminalisation of…

In 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada took a step in the wrong direction. The Court made a harmful decision that would have people living with HIV charged with aggravated sexual assault, jailed, and registered as sexual offenders – all…

Press Release from The Sero Project Ken Pinkela serves as a member of Sero’s Advisory Board. New York, NY April 24, 2015: The United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) has vacated HIV-related Aggravated Assault and Reckless…

Guest blog post by the production team of Ruins: Chronicle of an HIV Witch-Hunt An official repeal of Health Decree 39A has been published on the Official Journal of the Hellenic Republic as of Friday, April 17. The decree led…

The past month or so has seen a huge amount of activity around overly broad HIV criminalisation in the United States, culminating the reintroduction of the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act by Congresswoman Barbara Lee. As well as on-going arrests and…

Last week, for the first time a German court ruled that HIV transmission without prior disclosure was negligent injury, rather than intentional harm. The District Court of Aachen sentenced a 43 year-old man to one year and nine months on…

On April 2nd 2015, a simply worded amendment to Article 1 of Law No. 8072 of July 25, 1990 – covering ‘heinous crimes’ – will be presented to the Brazilian Parliament by the populist Congressman, Pompeo de Mattos. The amendement, draft Bill…

The US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) has reversed the 2011 aggravated assault conviction (upheld by the US Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals in 2013) of Airman David Gutierrez for potentially exposing a number of sex…

Tomorrow, Zimbabwe’s HIV-specific criminal statute, Section 79 of the Zimbabwe Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act 23 of 2004 will be on trial itself, facing its first-ever challenge in the Constitutional Court. The Court will hear arguments on behalf of…

Today was the deadline for responses to the scoping consultation of the reform the Offences Against The Person Act, undertaken by the Law Commission. This is the law in England and Wales that is currently used to prosecute people living…

This week, the Law Commission – which reviews areas of the law in England and Wales that have become unduly complicated, outdated or unfair –  will conclude its scoping consultation of the reform the Offences Against The Person Act, the…

Spain’s Supreme Court last week upheld a nine-year prison sentence for a man, known as ‘ABM’, who did not disclose his HIV-positive status to his former partner, who is now also living with HIV.  Although the reports do not state under…

The High Court in Kampala has rejected an appeal from Rosemary Namubiru, who was convicted in May 2014 for negligently exposing a child to HIV during a needlestick injury. However, Justice Rugadya Atwooki found that her original three year sentence was excessive…

Last week saw the launch of a new phase of a targeted social marketing campaign by AIDS ACTION NOW! (AAN) that features 42 short videos from members and allies of Toronto’s LGBTQI community. ‘Think Twice’ asks HIV-negative and untested gay,…

Lawmakers in Nepal are considering a draft law that singles out people with HIV and hepatitis B, contrary to recommendations from UNAIDS and the Global Commission on HIV and the Law. According to the draft text, tweeted by IRIN Humanitarian…

The District Court of Oldenburg has sent a 30-year-old female sex worker to prison for at least nine years under Germany’s ‘preventive detention’ law, because she has shown a pattern of not disclosing to clients that she was living with…

Yesterday, the Assize Court of Bouches-du-Rhône in the south of France sentenced  Christophe Morat, aged 40, to twelve years’ imprisonment, after having found him guilty of “administering a harmful substance with intent to cause permanent disability or mental impairment”. There…

Beyond Blame: Challenging HIV Criminalisation A pre-conference meeting for AIDS 2014 In July 2014, at a meeting held to just prior to the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia around 150 participants from all regions of the world came together…

Last week, Sweden’s Supreme Court announced that it would not grant leave to appeal in a case where the prosecution had appealed an acquittal from Court of Appeal regarding a man living with HIV, on successful antiretroviral therapy, who had…

[Press Statement from the Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Act] Civil society organisations reacted harshly today to the assent by President Museveni on July 31 2014 to Uganda’s controversial HIV Bill, the HIV Prevention and Control Act of 2014,…

[Press release from Lambda Legal] “We call upon those charged with enforcing such laws—from governors to prosecutors to police detectives—to halt the criminal prosecution and resulting persecution of any individual based on HIV status.” (Washington, D.C. Thursday, July 17, 2014)…

[Press release from the US Department of Justice] JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RELEASES BEST PRACTICES GUIDE TO REFORM HIV-SPECIFIC CRIMINAL LAWS TO ALIGN WITH SCIENTIFICALLY-SUPPORTED FACTORS WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that it has released a Best Practices Guide to…

In the lead-up to AIDS 2014, ten powerful thought-provoking films from seven countries over three days (18, 19 and 21 July 2014) will outrage Melbourne film-goers by exploring how laws and policies aimed at controlling, punishing or disempowering specific groups…